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The University of the Sea 2006Auckland - Nouméa - Sydney

7 to 26 February

University of the Sea 2006 2

Contents

Network Members and Sponsors _______________________________________ 3 Foreward__________________________________________________________ 4 Participants ________________________________________________________ 5 Cruise Report ______________________________________________________ 8 Cruise Diary ______________________________________________________ 12 Outcomes and Networking___________________________________________ 44 Student Assessments _______________________________________________ 53 Budget __________________________________________________________ 56 Acknowledgements ________________________________________________ 58 University of the Sea Contact Details __________________________________ 59

The RV Marion Dufresne.

Cover: This image of the Tasman Sea floor was obtained by the multi-beam swath mapper mounted on the hull of RV Marion Dufresne. It shows for the first time an extinct volcano 30km across and over 1000 meters high (blue is deeper sea floor).


Network Members and Sponsors

Research Center for MarineTechnology

Ministry of Marine Affairs & Fisheries,

Indonesia


Foreward

The University of the Sea is a collaboration between the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO and several leading universities and research institutions in the Asia Pacific region. It was established to build on the success of the IOC UNESCO Training Through Research Program, which has operated in the northern hemisphere since 1990. The University of the Sea is dedicated to building marine science capacity in the Asia Pacific region. It aims to bring together senior researchers and young local scholars to address marine science issues of direct interest to the region. The programme endeavours to give these students the opportunity to gain the skills and knowledge required for participation in the global debate on the use of the ocean. We must congratulate our second cohort of students, a diverse group drawn from 7 countries in the region, as documented in this Report. They displayed great enthusiasm and commitment to improving our understanding of the ocean. We look forward to a continuing relationship as we build an extensive regional marine science research network. The establishment of the University of the Sea was made possible by a grant from the Toyota Foundation of Japan. We are particularly grateful to the Toyota Foundation for their support of the University of the Sea office, at the University of Sydney. The University of the Sea research and training programme would not be possible without a modern research vessel. For this we are exceptionally grateful to the French Polar Institute and thank the Director, Dr Gérard Jugie, for again providing access to the wonderful research vessel Marion Dufresne. We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Mr Yvon Balut, the ships Operations Manager for his tireless assistance in facilitating both University of the Sea cruises. In addition, we are extremely thankful to the following institutions for their financial support: The Asia Pacific Network for Global Change Research, the ARC Network for Earth System Science and MARGO (Australian Universities Office for Promoting Marine Geoscience). The second University of the Sea cruise was led by Dr Jock Keene from the University of Sydney, with Dr Julie Dickinson, also from the University of Sydney, Professor Greg Skilbeck from the University of Technology, Sydney, and Professor Patrick De Deckker from the Australian National University. Together they volunteered an enormous amount of their time, which resulted in a comprehensive and exciting learning experience for the student participants. The success of the programme depends on the contribution of senior marine scientists who act as instructors and mentors to the students. Executive Committee Dr Elaine Baker, University of Sydney Professor Patrick De Deckker, Australian National University Management Committee: Dr Ehrlich Desa, The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO Associate Professor Mathew England, University of New South Wales Dr Miguel Fortes, IOC WESTPAC Dr Hi Il Yi, Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute (KORDI). Dr Jock Keene, University of Sydney Dr Julie Dickinson, University of Sydney Professor Pinxian Wang, School of Ocean and Earth Science, Tongji University Shanghai. Dr Shubha Sathyendranath, Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO), Associate Professor Greg Skilbeck, University of Technology Sydney Professor Ryuji Tada, Department of Earth and Planetary Science University of Tokyo


University of the Sea Participants

Agus Ziyad Kurnia

Institut Teknologi Sepuluh

Nopember Indonesia

Leigh Anderson

University of Otago

New Zealand

Jessica Bowen

Thomas

Australian National University Australia

Denise Chand

University of the South

Pacific Fiji

Tina Donaldson

University of New South

Wales Australia

Matthew Dryburgh

University of Sydney

Australia

Utami Kadarwati

Bogor Institute of

Agriculture Indonesia

Belinda Kinna

University of Melbourne

Australia

Joo Han Lee

University of Science and

Technology Republic of Korea

Melanie Lewis

University of Technology,

Sydney Australia


Briony Mamo

Macquarie University

Australia

Heidi Pethybridge

University of Tasmania

Australia

Terney Pranciscu

Baduge

University of Ruhuna Sri Lanka

Awnesh Singh


Pacific Fiji

Exsley Taloiburi


Pacific Fiji

Emily Twiggs

Curtin University

Australia

Mirella Verhoeven


Sydney Australia

Lilian Weiland

University of Auckland,

New Zealand

Felicia Weir


Australia


University of the Sea Cruise Leader and Lecturers

Patrick De Deckker

Australian National

University Australia

Julie Dickinson


Australia

Jock Keene

Cruise Leader

University of Sydney Australia

Greg Skilbeck


Sydney Australia


Cruise Report The second “University of the Sea” training program took place in the Tasman Sea region onboard the research vessel Marion Dufresne, from 7th to 26th February, 2006. During these 20 days the ship sailed two legs: Auckland-Noumea (7th to 11th) and Noumea-Sydney (12th to 26th). Nineteen students and four staff assembled in Auckland on Sunday and Monday the 5th and 6th of February. The students came from 7 countries (Fiji, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand), with a wide range of backgrounds, from oceanography to biology to physics to engineering to geosciences. Most were PhD and MSc students, with some doing fourth year science Honours. Two were early career scientists in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The staff consisted of Associate Professor Jock Keene (Cruise Leader, University of Sydney), Professor Greg Skilbeck (University of Technology, Sydney), Dr Julie Dickinson (University of Sydney) and for the first leg only, Professor Patrick DeDeckker (Australian National University). During the first leg the ship was in transit as there was no formal research program, however underway data was collected. The students had lectures on seafloor mapping, ocean productivity, paleoclimate, oceanography and deep sea drilling results. In the afternoons they were divided into three groups and did practical exercises on navigation, swath mapping bathymetry, seismic reflection profiling, ocean properties, coring techniques and analysis of sediment cores using the Multi Sensor Track. A plankton tow allowed students to examine the microscopic life in the ocean. This was interspersed with tours of the ship’s winches, bridge, engine room and safety training. The day before the ship reached Noumea was a Conference Day, when students gave oral presentations of their research projects. For many it was their first public presentation and for some, their first given in English. It was a very successful event and bonded the students as friends and researchers with common goals. ! Agus Ziyad Kurnia, (Indonesia) Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember: Offshore oil

platform technology. ! Jessica Bowen-Thomas, (Australia) Australian National University: The Law of the Sea,

how UNCLOS affects us as Marine Scientists. ! Denise Chand, (Fiji) University of the South Pacific: Physical oceanography effects of

seasonal variation of salinity in the Suva Lagoon. ! Tina Donaldson, (Australia) University of NSW: Investigating possible causes of 20th

century cooling and freshening of Antarctic Intermediate Water. ! Leigh Anderson, (New Zealand) University of Otago: How do river system connections

affect biogeography? ! Matthew Dryburgh, (Australia) University of Sydney: Marine sedimentology and deep

sea environments. ! Utami Kadarwati, (Indonesia) Bogor Institute of Agriculture: Weather and climate

information for the traditional salt pond, coastal Indonesia. ! Belinda Kinna, (Australia) University of Melbourne: Platform evolution in the Barrow

Sub-basin. North west shelf, Western Australia ! Joo Han Lee, (Republic of Korea) University of Science and Technology (Republic of

Korea): Geophysical surveys and gas hydrates in polar regions.


! Melanie Lewis, (Australia) Univerity of Technology, Sydney: The life-history and ecology of the Bluefish (Girella cyanea) at Lord Howe Island, South Pacific.

! Briony Mamo, (Australia) Macquarie University: Foraminifera, their life and times. ! Heidi Pethybridge, (Australia) University of Tasmania: Deep-sea dogfish sharks, aspects

of their trophic ecology, reproductive investment and ecotoxicity. ! Terney Pradeep Kumara, (Sri Lanka) University of Ruhuna: Coral transplantation; an

additional tourist attraction in Polhena reef of southern Sri Lanka. ! Awnesh Singh (Fiji) University of the South Pacific: Transportation of fine suspended

sediments in the Suva lagoon using numerical modeling. ! Exsley Taloiburi (Solomon Islands) University of the South Pacific: Evaluating the water

quality in coastal waters along the Coral Coast, southwest Vitilevu, Fiji. ! Emily Twiggs (Australia) Curtin University: Morphology and habitats of Ningaloo Reef. ! Mirella Verhoeven (Australia) University of Technology, Sydney: Does epiphyte grazing

improve the sustainability of remnant patches of seagrass in Botany Bay? ! Lilian Weiland (New Zealand) University of Auckland: Benthic foraminiferal record of

deep-sea paleoceanography around New Zealand during the Last Glacial Maximum. ! Felicia Weir (Australian) University of Sydney: Beach face and berm morphodynamics: a

key to the sustainable management of coastal lagoons. Prior to the cruise all students were sent a cd containing reading material, cruises plan and objectives, maps and images, seafloor visualization software and movies, ‘learn French’, and background material on oceanographic data collection and the ship’s equipment. Twenty French and Australian scientists and technicians joined the ship for leg 2 to implement a cooperative research program exploring the sea floor on either side of the France/Australia Exclusive Economic Zone boundary. This leg of the cruise was named MD153 and the three research projects were ZoNéCo 12 (after the zone of economic cooperation), AUSFAIR (after the Fairway sedimentary basin that occurs beneath the sea floor in this area) and climate change. The scientists had the projects funded through their institutions: Geoscience Australia, Institut Francais pour l’Exploitation de la Mer (Ifremer, France) and Institut de Reserche pour le Developpement (IRD, New Caledonia). The overall aim of the research was to determine the nature of particular seismic reflectors and young fault lines and folds in the sediments discovered on previous cruises, to see if they were related to methane gas or hydrothermal fluids. Three sedimentary basins (New Caledonia Basin, Fairway Basin and Capel Basin) were investigated by:

! Collecting 40 meter long Calypso Cores and heat flow measurements over areas of possible fluid migration to the seafloor from gas hydrates (‘frozen’ methane) or other sources.

! Acquiring swath bathymetry, sub-bottom seismic profiles, gravity and magnetic data on transits to and from the sampling sites.

! Dredging to determine the geology of the basement and syn-rift rocks on the eastern flank of the Lord Howe Rise.

The Calypso Corer was also used to obtain a long paleoclimate record from the New Caledonia Basin, which will provide information on seasurface temperature and plankton productivity for the past 600,000 years.


From day one the students were fully integrated with the research. The Chief Scientists briefed the students on the program and other scientists gave lectures on their special interests. Students were divided into six teams to stand watch under the supervision of the research scientists. The ship works 24-hours a day, and the students had 4 hours on watch followed by 8 hours ‘off’, during which time they were preparing reports and their group poster. While on watch, the students were trained in various oceanographic techniques including: piston coring, dredging, CTD, XBT, magnetometer, gravity meter, plankton tows, seismic reflection profiling, multibeam mapping and navigation. The student watchstanders, under the direction of a senior scientist, were responsible for carrying out the research program during their watch. This involved surveying the sea floor for the best sampling site, monitoring underway data collection, sampling methods and procedures, processing and logging the samples, core analysis using the Multisensor Track, sub-sampling for shore-based studies and archiving all samples in cool-rooms onboard. This was a unique opportunity for practical oceanographic research training. The students gained skills by doing, by working in a team, and by communicating the results. A reception was held onboard when the ship reached Sydney. The French Ambassador to Australia presented each student with a Certificate confirming their participation and completion of the training program and research tasks. Post cruise all students were sent a cd containing a representative selection of the collected data (3.5KHz seismic profiles, cores, CTD, MST, dredges, heat flow, multibeam), Power Point lectures presented, a preliminary cruise report and ship track. Since returning to their home institutions, most students have given talks on their experience at sea and they have reported that there was widespread interest in the opportunity provided by the University of the Sea. Associate Professor Jock Keene University of the Sea Cruise Leader 2006 University of Sydney


Group Photo, 8 February 2006


Cruise Diary

Days 1/2

February 7/8, 2006

Anchors away! We cast off in a beautiful Auckland sunset and headed for sea at 2100 hours. The students enjoyed a spectacular Auckland skyline from the deck above the bridge, as we steamed down the harbour. The open ocean was kind to us with just a ‘gentle’ swell from across the Pacific and a light breeze. Nevertheless, the ship rolled in the trough as we turned to head north and some students are still finding their sea legs. It had been a busy day getting onboard and meeting shipmates for the first time. This is the second University of the Sea sponsored by Australian universities. Nineteen students from 7 countries have embarked on this expedition along with four staff. For many, it is their first experience at sea. There are also four French students still onboard from the previous leg. They are a bonus for our students as they assist with our tasks, as we spend three days transiting to Noumea. During this time all underway equipment is operating. Students are learning to map the sea floor, as well as learning what’s beneath the sea floor and about changing ocean parameters such as salinity and water temperature. Our first full day at sea has been busy with a French style breakfast at 7 and first lecture at 8. Introductions by the students again illustrated their wide variety of backgrounds and interests – fish biology, geophysics, oceanography, climate change and coastal processes. The lectures I gave got the students involved in practical navigation and sea floor mapping. After lunch, a ship

tour by Yvon Balut enabled us to become familiar with the equipment onboard. This was an essential event as many students had got lost in the various decks (A to H), corridors and stairs. Highlights of the tour were the Bridge, the winch room in the bowels of the ship and the bakery where the smells of the evening desserts were mouth-watering. The tour was followed by an emergency drill where students and staff were instructed in safety and lifeboat procedures. Student volunteers donned survival suits, much to the amusement of others. The afternoon ended with a lecture on biological oceanography from Patrick De Deckker, an essential prerequisite for the plankton tows we will be doing in the coming days.

Denise Chand (Fiji) models a safety suit.


Day 3

February 9, 2006 There was a cloudy horizon last evening so no ‘green flash’ from the sunset, much to the disappointment of the students. I am sure they will be out on ‘steel beach’ (the bow) again tonight, as the weather is beautiful and the seas calm. No wildlife either, not even an albatross. This was predicted from the data in Patrick’s lectures on productivity in the oceans. We are in an area of the ocean lacking in nutrients, so it is a desert in ocean terms. Much raucous laughter last night after dinner in the lounge, as the students practiced French with their French shipmates. It is really a pleasure to see so many from around 11 countries getting on so well.

Patrick and students recognising volcanoes beneath us.

Up early and straight into the warm pool! At least that is what happened to the ship and Patrick at 8am, as he took us though the significance of the ‘warm pool’, a lens of hot ocean water in the western Pacific to the

north of us. Its importance to world climate both now and in the future is huge. (We are getting our money’s worth out of him as he has to leave us in Noumea on Saturday). The students did pick up on the important point that when the temperature of the water reaches 270 C, cyclones can form. This prompted a sudden interest in meteorology. Students recorded the rise in sea surface temperatures during the day as we steamed into the southern part of the ‘warm pool’ at a brisk 13 knots (20 km/hour). One student, who was enjoying the calm seas, even went to the bridge to check the barometric pressure and weather map for impending cyclones. This was only our second full day on board, but what a busy one it was. Lectures by Julie and Greg completed the morning. Julie showed the students the relevance of sea floor mapping, seismic profiling and coring (all of which we are doing) to her recent project in the English Channel, funded by English Heritage. She showed the importance of submarine landscape for human migration pathways during the last ice age, when that sea floor was dry land. The archaeological significance of the sea floor is only now being realized. This area of the English Channel is also extensively mined for sand and gravel to maintain our lifestyles on land. The students are using similar mapping and sampling methods on this trip, except in much deeper water and hence, using heavier equipment. Similar studies are no doubt required to trace human migration on the now drowned shelves of the western Pacific, not to mention the skyrocketing demand for sand and gravel resources preserved under the ocean, and


the environmental studies required before they can be mined. Greg took the student through the Greatest Hits of the Ocean Drilling Program – discoveries in the deep-sea sediments such as the massive impact of a meteor 65 million years ago and the extinctions it caused, and the comings and goings of the ice ages as best recorded in the deep sea. He then detailed his research on two expeditions with the Ocean Drilling Program, and methods of collecting and analyzing data. The afternoon was spent in three teams. The groups rotated, with one receiving instruction from Greg and Pierre on the Multi Sensor Track – a non-destructive method of analyzing cores for magnetism, porosity etc. Another group visited the engine room and the gravity meter, while the third were led through the world of sonar and swath mapping with a multibeam. Even those tone deaf, like myself, now know the difference between a 3.5 and a 12 KHz pulse of sound as it leaves the ship and returns, some of the beams travelling 10 km or more to the sea floor and back. A highlight was the discovery of a field of very young (probably active) volcanoes on the sea floor. Some were perfect cones rising 1,000 meters above the sea floor, but still 2000 meters beneath the ship. These features are on no current maps. This just goes to show how little we know about our own planet, especially the sea floor, and also reminds us that most volcanic eruptions occur under water, unbeknown to us. Later in the afternoon the ship slowed, so we could tow a net to sample plankton living near the sea surface. We got a diverse haul despite the desert conditions, enough to identify the fascinating shapes and ‘skeletons’ in this microscopic world. Spherical radiolarians, spiny foraminifers,

salps and snail like pteropods were all identified under the microscope.

Jock explaining to students how to use the CTD (Conductivity Temperature Depth) Monitor.


Day 4 February 10, 2006

This was Conference Day. Every student gave an oral presentation in the ship’s theatre. The audience was enlarged by French students and the ship’s Doctor (his first time at sea). The talks were interspersed with instruction on 3D visualization of the sea floor, and lowering instruments several kilometers to the sea floor to measure conductivity (salinity), temperature, oxygen and chlorophyll. Jock and Patrick showed fly-throughs of the sea floor landscape to entertain the students. The free software iView3D from the Interactive Visualisation Systems fledermaus program was given to the students, along with data. Patrick explained how corals are archives of past climate variability because they preserve annual (sometimes weekly) growth rings packed with information. The morning was completed with film clips of the underwater corals and coring corals to obtain this information. Julie chaired the sessions and a vast range of topics were covered from reef evolution and management, tourism impact on water quality in lagoons, seaweed farming, transplanting corals, ecology of fish, sharks and foraminifers, beach erosion, seawater evaporation ponds, frozen methane in Polar regions, oil platform stability, beach erosion, and Law of the Sea issues. It was a friendly and supportive atmosphere and students introduced their talks with phrases in their native language. For some it was their first presentation in English. We all now know how to say ‘hello’ in seven languages.

! Agus Ziyad Kurnia, Indonesia, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember: Offshore oil platform technology.

! Denise Chand, Fiji, University of the South Pacific: Physical oceanography effects of seasonal variation of salinity in the Suva Lagoon.

! Tina Donaldson, Australia, University of NSW: Investigating possible causes of 20th century cooling and freshening of Antarctic Intermediate Water.

! Leigh Anderson, New Zealand, University of Otago: How do river system connections affect biogeography?

! Matthew Dryburgh, Australia, University of Sydney: Honours project on marine sedimentology and deep-sea environments.

! Utami Kadarwati, Indonesia, Bogor Institute of Agriculture: Weather and climate information for the traditional salt pond, coastal Indonesia.

Utami explaining the significance of sea water evaporation ponds to the economy of coastal communities.


! Jessica Bowen-Thomas, Australia, Australian National University: The Law of the Sea, how UNCLOS affects us as Marine Scientists.

! Belinda Kinna, Australia, University of Melbourne: Platform evolution in the Barrow Sub-basin. North west shelf, Western Australia

! Joo Han Lee, Korea, University of Science and Technology (Korea): Geophysical surveys and gas hydrates in polar regions.

! Melanie Lewis, Australia, University of Technology, Sydney: The life history and ecology of the Bluefish (Girella cyanea) at Lord Howe Island, South Pacific.

! Briony Mamo, Australia, Macquarie University: Foraminifera, their life and times.

! Heidi Pethybridge, Australia, University of Tasmania: Deep-sea dogfish sharks, aspects of their trophic ecology, reproductive investment and ecotoxicity.

! Terney Pradeep Kumara, Sri Lanka University of Ruhuna: Coral transplantation; an additional tourist attraction in Polhena reef of southern Sri Lanka.

! Awnesh Singh Fiji University of the South Pacific: Transportation of fine suspended sediments in the Suva lagoon using numerical modelling.

! Exsley Taloiburi Solomon Islands University of the South Pacific: Evaluating the water quality in coastal waters along the Coral Coast, southwest Vitilevu, Fiji.

! Emily Twiggs Australia Curtin University: Morphology and habitats of Ningaloo Reef.

! Mirella Verhoeven Australia University of Technology, Sydney: Does epiphyte grazing improve the sustainability of remnant patches of seagrass in Botany Bay?

! Lilian Weiland New Zealand University of Auckland: Benthic foraminiferal record of deep-sea paleoceanography around New Zealand during the Last Glacial Maximum.

! Felicia Weir Australian University of Sydney: Beach face and berm morphodynamics: a key to the sustainable management of coastal lagoons.

Now that you have met everyone, I will use first names for the remainder of the cruise. In the evening, the students monitored bathymetry and navigation as we crossed major features on the sea floor, the Cook Fracture Zone and the North Norfolk Basin, and then into the tropics at latitude 23.5, the Tropic of Capricorn. It was great to see the students interacting, talking, laughing and teasing. The shyness of the first meeting earlier in the week in Auckland is now a distant memory. No longer are all the men, outnumbered 12 to 7, on one table and all the women on another! They have now organized a ping-pong tournament, which includes crew, so that will be amusing as the table rolls with the ship.


Day 5

February 11, 2006

The Marion Dufresne in harbour, Noumea.

A beautiful sunrise saw us heave to less than a nautical mile from the barrier reef, with the mountains of New Caledonia looming in the cloudy mist in the background. The tall lighthouse on the reef marked the narrow passage through and we waited for the 7am rendezvous with the Pilot boat. A rainbow added to the atmosphere as we steamed within what seemed like meters of the breaking waves on the reef. The lighthouse is 150 years old and was prefabricated in cast iron in France, and shipped here to be assembled. It has great oceanographic and climatic significance since it has been recording weather and sea surface temperatures for 150 years, the longest record of its kind from this part of the world’s oceans. We tied up at 8am in azure blue water beneath and sky above, ending leg 1 of the cruise.

The students were quick to return for lunch, both because of the air conditioning and Heidi’s birthday. They had bought presents, and a cake and candles were prepared by the chefs. This was followed by superb livarot and coulommiers, amongst the many choices on the fromage plateau. In the afternoon everyone went swimming on a nearby beach, except me. I was caught up with the arrival of the new Scientific Party, a joint Australian and French group, some 12 scientists in all. We met in the Operations Room for final preparations and to plan the sampling for the cruise. Many had not met each other ‘in the flesh’, and most had not been on this vessel before. It looks like a busy two weeks coming up with round the clock operations. Students will be integrated into the research program and stand watch under the supervision of senior scientists. I don’t think they realize how busy they will be or how tired they will get, especially those on the midnight to 4am watch. I will supervise the 4am to 8am watch because I like to see the sunrises and also my 4pm to 8pm is a very civilized time to be on watch. Dinner reached new heights with snails ‘Feuillete d’escargots’, ‘Paupiette de lotte au beurre blanc sauce’, etc etc. Again a first for most students! Food and sitting around the table always raises other issues of cultural diversity, including a discussion on student-supervisor relationships and (of course) relationships with parents.


Day 6

February 12, 2006 Freshly baked pain au chocolat got the students off to a flying start for their second day of this brief stop in Noumea. Some went to visit the Cathedrale Saint Joseph that overlooks the town like a miniature Notre Dame, others stocked up on fresh tropical fruit at the colourful and busy fish and produce market, and some just went to laze in the sun on the beach. I did the first two, then joined a group on bus No. 2 which took us through town and along the coast to the Tjibaou Cultural Centre. Well worth the visit, as I gained an understanding of Kanak identity and an appreciation of the depth of South Pacific art. The ship has been resupplied and refuelled for the voyage to Sydney. Now the real work begins. I don’t think the students realize what they are in for with working 24-hours a day for the next two weeks. The wind has picked up and has been blowing a steady 25 knots all day, so it should be quite a ride once we clear the reef. I am writing this as we make our way in the relative calm of the lagoon. Today the French and Australian Chief Scientists made final scientific plans for this joint expedition to explore sea floor on either side of the France/Australia Exclusive Economic Zone boundary. The cruise is named MD153 and the projects are ZONECO 12 (after the zone of economic cooperation) and AUSFAIR (after the Fairway sedimentary basin that occurs beneath the sea floor, where we will be sampling). The students have been put into multi-national groups and assigned watches. They will work under the direction of the scientist

in charge of that watch and be trained by experienced scientists also on the watch. They seem very excited. We now feel like old hands on the ship thanks to the Operations Manager Yvon Balut and the rest of the crew, who have gone out of their way to make this happen onboard this state-of-the-art French ship. Our first core will be at 3am tomorrow (in 4 hours time) so………………….

Yvon Balut (Chief of Operations) explaining to the students how the Dynamic Positioning System operates computers to keep the ship in one place while we are coring.


Day 7

February 13, 2006

The Calypso corer being launched over the A-frame.

We gave in and decided to let the students sleep through the first core, though some were woken as the ship did a survey using sonar (3.5KHz seismic reflection profiling) and manoeuvred to find a suitable location where there was enough sediment to core. Large areas of sea floor in this region are rock, with only a thin veneer of mud and plenty of pumice from volcanoes. Once the core site was selected by the scientists on watch, the ship returns to within a few meters of that location and the computers take over with the Dynamic Positioning System. The ship maintains its position

within a few meters above the coring location, 3,500 meters below on the sea floor. The giant piston-corer for which this ship is famous is known as Calypso. Early this morning it was assembled with a 40m long barrel and 8 tonnes of weight, and lowered gently to the sea floor where it was triggered. The pullout pressure confirmed we had a good core, but it took another one and a half hours to get it back from those depths. Our first core was successful and 30m long. It was stored to await the first student watch at noon. This core was a sub-project not mentioned in my diary yesterday. It was funded by New Caledonia for climate change researchers at IRD Noumea (Denis Wirrmann – onboard) and ANU (Patrick DeDeckker – departed yesterday). It is an important core because it will contain a 600,000+ year climate record of temperature and ocean conditions, the longest ever recovered from this area. It will be compared to the climate record in drilled cores from the Great Barrier Reef and elsewhere in the Pacific. Should keep a team of researchers busy for a couple of years. We now have 20 leading scientists onboard with international experience for us, the University of the Sea, to exploit! We are really fortunate to have this opportunity. The students assembled in the theatre at 8am as usual, for a briefing from the French and Australian Chief Scientists about the objectives and plan for the cruise. Dr Jim Colwell (Geoscience Australia) explained that a bottom simulating reflector (BSR) has been discovered in this area where the


French/Australian seabed boundary lies. This feature has been mapped by previous cruises and it mimics the shape of the seafloor, but 600m below the sea floor. This joint cruise is the culmination of several years of co-operative work and is planned to test two conflicting hypotheses: is the BSR frozen methane gas (hydrate) OR is it caused by hot water from volcanoes mineralizing and making the strata harder at that location? Each scientist favours one or the other but there is conflicting data. Only a drill ship could reach the BSR and the international deep sea drilling program is busy with other projects. That leaves the Marion Dufresne to use its long corer to test for gases in the sediments and seeping out on the sea floor. Dr Jean-Paul Foucher (IFREMER, Brest, France) has the same objective to test on the French side of the boundary. The conference presentation on Law of the Sea last Friday by Jessica came in handy for the students. The French scientists have also added thermisters to the outside of the corer. They will record the thermal gradient or heat flux out of the earth to see if hot waters are involved in forming the BSR. To further test for petroleum potential of the region, we will dredge scarps on the margins of the basins to test if the rocks were once part of Australia, or if they are younger and volcanic. A break was had from the talks when the motion of the ship signalled a new core station. Our planned second core site had to be moved because the seismic revealed the sea floor was a 30m thick landslide. This flow of debris came from New Caledonia 100km to our north east. The new site was where the strata were not disturbed and not buried by a recent debris flow. Flow like this can cause tsunamis and are being intensively studied, but for our objectives it was a bad target. The core was successful with another 30m.

After some discussion over a drink onshore yesterday, the ship’s doctor has started a French class for willing students. It seems that the University of the Sea is extending its curriculum to languages!

The second watch is getting into the mud with this core. The ‘shells’ of microscopic plankton make up most of the mud. The oxygen and carbon isotopes in these ‘shells’ from the layers in the core will be studied to determine changing productivity and water temperatures during the comings and goings of the ice ages. Terney (University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka), Briony (Macquarie Uni) and Heidi (University of Tasmania) do all the work.


Day 8

February 14, 2006

Map showing the shape of the sea floor between New Caledonia and Australia. We are working on the Lord Howe Rise (yellow). The red lines are political boundaries (image from Jim Colwell’s talk).

Up at 3:30am this morning to grab a café from the galley before the 4-8am watch. The previous watch was led by Julie, and the Chief Scientist, who was up all night determining the operations. As part of their training, my six students had to ask those coming off watch ‘Where are we? What are we doing? Why? Some students were a bit drowsy, but that soon wore off as we had to move cores stored by the previous watch while instruments were being calibrated. We are certainly feeling needed on this expedition, as there is plenty that has to be done to the cores. Students are being trained to operate all instruments and are not just looking on. They are on a steep learning curve as they are doing real field work at the cutting-edge of international science. Helped by the three French students who have been on since Hobart, they realize that collecting precise data, analyzing it and making interpretations and predictions are

all part of field work at sea. They are involved in every aspect of the program and are free to consult senior researchers who are working with them. The ship is too valuable and costly to the researcher’s bank balance (grant) to waste even an hour. The daily rate for this ship is 45,000 euros (70,000 Australian dollars) plus equipment, scientists and technicians. A young albatross joined us this morning and settled in on the bow for a nap, presumably after an exhausting search for food in this ocean desert. The students have named him Bruce, naturally. One upside for the ocean desert is that it is an incredible dark blue colour, because there are few plankton to reflect and scatter the green wavelengths of light.

Ship’s track and coring stations since we left Noumea. Pale line is the proposed track the solid red line is the actual track taken with the benefit of real-time data. Ship is at blue dot and coring.

Just in case you haven’t caught up with the characteristics of RV Marion Dufresne: Length (longueur hors tout) = 120.5m


Tirant d’eau (when you will run aground) = 6.95m Deplacement (without the students and cheese) = 10,380 tonnes Propulsion: diesel-electric, 2x3,000 W Passengers: maximum 110 Crew: maximum 28 The ship is a resupply vessel for the French territories in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic, so it has to be a fuel tanker, cargo ship, passenger liner, and research vessel all in one. And the formula works. Coring and heat flow measurements continued all day so we were busy processing those. At 11pm we deployed a CTD to measure a profile through the water column of: conductivity for salinity, temperature, pressure to measure depth, and a flourometer to measure productivity of the ocean algae. Other instruments were also attached to measure properties that will help the researchers determine if warm water seeps (compared to the near freezing bottom water) are coming out of the sea floor like springs on a hillside. This location was picked by the French scientists because faults have displaced the sea floor here. This indicates that the fractures are young and the seismic shows they penetrate a thousand meters below the sea floor to a dome which might be volcanic, or might be squeezed mud and salt. The French scientists are using the same techniques they have used to find and study the very hot water vents at active volcanoes on the seafloor in the mid-Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere. A nephelometer attached to the stainless steel frame of the CTD will measure turbidity to see if there is a plume of water coming out of the sea floor and carrying with it traces of mud. A rosette of 24 non-metallic bottles will sample water when triggered from the ship. This water will be analysed to measure the types of dissolved gas and other chemical tracers. To get the samples and data this expensive

instrument has to be carefully ‘flown’ only a few meters above the sea floor in 3,000m of water. To do this a 12KHz pinger is attached to act like an echo sounder but monitored in the Operations Laboratory. I’m off to bed, will tell you the results tomorrow.

Launching the CTD over the starboard side.


Day 9

February 15, 2006

Emily, Awnesh and Ziyad discuss the seawater parameters as the CTD descends to just above the sea floor at 2,476m.

A beautiful sunrise and fresh sea breeze compensate for the shift work. The data keeps coming in as we steam to the next station. Locations and methods are modified to suite the conditions and the targets on the sea floor. The CTD was successful. It was lowered to 2,370 meters, continuously measuring the seawater parameters and sending the data to the displays in the Operations Room. They showed that the ocean here is a well mixed 270c down to 55m, by wind and waves. Below that there is a rapid decrease in temperature called a ‘thermocline’. This strong thermocline with denser water below stops nutrient-rich water reaching the surface by upwelling – thus this ocean is a desert. Plankton particles reached a maximum at 90-100m. Salinity is also higher at the surface because evaporation exceeds rainfall at these latitudes. The temperature decreased to 2 degrees at

2,476m, some 20m above the sea floor. At this depth there was an increase in particles in the water. A water sample was taken and at 19 other locations on the way up. Immediately upon arriving on deck, sampling for gases took place. Water samples for helium-3 had to be sealed in copper tubes because the atoms are so small they can escape through glass and plastic. This isotope of helium occurs deep in the earth and is brought to the ocean by volcanic activity, so it is a good indicator of such activity and once in the bottom water it can be traced around the sea floor. Once into the atmosphere it rapidly escapes from Earth. On Monday we had a lecture from Neville Exon (Geoscience Australia/ANU) who has vast experience in marine geology. He was the first to recognize the Bottom Simulating Reflector when analyzing seismic reflection profiles collected during a joint Australian-French RV Rig Seismic expedition to this area. They published their results in 1998 and interpreted the BSR as a methane gas hydrate layer that extends over an area of at least 25,000 square kilometers. This interpretation of the acoustic data is now in dispute. The alternative hypothesis is water escaping from rocks deep below the BSR has precipitated minerals at this level where the pressure and temperature are favourable. Perhaps we will solve this conflict. More likely we will create as many scientific problems as we solve because so little is known about the deep sea environments. Neville’s lecture laid the background to the scientific questions we hope to find answers to. He explained the plate tectonic evolution of the area and the processes that had


shaped the sea floor. If the BSR is frozen methane, then is the gas from bacteria living near the BSR? or has it come from deeper, where heating the remains of organisms can form gases? If we can get trace amounts of methane then these two origins are easily distinguished by their isotopes of carbon in the CH4.

Utami Kadarwati (Bogor Institute of Agriculture, Indonesia) and Matthew Dryburgh (University of Sydney) operating the Multi-Sensor Track (MST) under the watchful supervision of Greg Skilbeck (University of Technology, Sydney). Precise measurements of density, sonic velocity and magnetic susceptibility are made every 2cm down each core. Cores are up to 4,000cm long!

We have formal as well as informal meetings to debate results and methods and review the program for the next 24 hours. Today the Australian team met together with University of the Sea lecturers, to plan the workload and flow of material from the seafloor to the deck, to core labelling, to core splitting, to MST then up one deck to the geochemical laboratory, where sediment will be squeezed and centrifuged to obtain pore water for analysis. They will then be described and carried two decks below to be archived at 40c in reefers (walk in refrigerators). We will need 2 students in each area 24 hours a day. They will rotate to

get experience in each operation. So it is all hands on deck and the galley will have to be notified, as there are two sittings of déjeuner and dîner. Surveying, coring and heat flow measurements continued all day, with another CTD above a field of ridges and circular hills up to 70m high and 200m across. These features are the target: are they mud volcanoes bringing mud and gases to the surface? OR are they normal sediments fractured and domed up by deeper intrusions? They certainly change the habitat on the sea floor for any organisms, when compared to the uniformly flat slope around them.

Felicia and Julie cooling-off in the washing machine between watches. It is a container with its top cut off. I wonder if the university’s insurance covers this?


Day 10

February 16, 2006 Bruce has departed ………... par avion. He left behind a bit of a mess. The wind has picked up as we head south at 14 knots - flat out. We crossed into Australian seabed territory at 7am and slowed to 6 knots, to get better data as we approached the core site. French and Australian scientists continue to work together on watches to maximize the results from both projects, but Jim took over as Chief Scientist. Using seismic profiling and multibeam mapping, we monitor the 3D shape of the sea floor and the layers beneath. We pass over the proposed location with the site survey and its location may be moved a little based on the new data. Again our objective is to core into a fault zone that reaches up to the sea floor and may be a conduit for water and gases from deeper down. Warm rain showers all day and a 26 knot wind by lunch time, no worries as the ship can continue sampling in worse weather than this. Students kept busy processing cores as requirements for chemical measurements in the laboratory one deck above are exacting. No time to think of seasickness, as they struggle to carry the cores from lab to lab as the deck rolls. First core is 24 meters using a 30 meter barrel, very successful. Second core triggered early so only 10 meters, such is life at sea. Cores come on deck and have to be cut into 1.5 meters and labelled by the students, carried to the stern deck, split in two halves, one half to the MST lab (air conditioned container on the deck), other half up to the geochemistry lab where students are also assisting. When analysed, the halves are put in gladwrap plastic, then tubes and carried

below deck to a walk in fridge for storage at four degrees. Off watch at 8pm for the second sitting of dinner, then straight to bed for students on my watch, as a long core is due on deck at midnight and that watch will cut it just in time for us to process it at 4am. The geochemists have been working for 16 hours, so will grab a few hours sleep in the meantime.

Exsley (University of the South Pacific) and Lilian (University of Auckland) assisting with survey for the core site. The faults and mounds on the sea floor are clearly visible on the 3.5 KHz seismic (left screen). Right screen is backscatter from sea floor and bathymetry from multibeam.

Preliminary results from the French experiments give a thermal gradient of approximately 5 degrees per 100 meters of depth below sea floor. Thus at 600 meters where the BSR lies, the temperature will have risen from 2 degrees at the sea floor to 32 degrees. Even with the pressure at this depth being over 400 bars, it may be too hot for the ice-like hydrate to form, but it is a close call. Prior to this cruise, models predicting hydrates had assumed a lower


temperature gradient. There is nothing like ‘ground truthing’ the theories. We now have to calculate the thermal conductivity of the sand and mud layers before we can determine the heat flux from the sea floor. The cementation by precipitating minerals hypothesis is not ruled out by these results. Both hypotheses are still viable………………

Cutting the full core liner into lengths. Terney (Uni of Ruhuna) and French students Laititia, Erwann and Carine.


Day 11

February 17, 2006

Cutting cores into sections after the core liner is removed from the barrels on the starboard deck during the night shift. Ziyad, Melanie and Robin.

Coring at the first two sites was successfully competed this morning, but processing the cores took all day. There was the odd white ooze fight to relieve the monotony. We are now surveying unexplored scarps for submarine canyons that cut into them and form steep cliffs for dredging. Hopefully, older rocks are exposed by this submarine erosion. We will pick sites then come back later tonight to dredge them. Velocity of sound in sea water varies with the properties of the ocean (temperature, pressure and salinity). It is crucial for us to

monitor these properties because we are sending out rays of sound 6 km on either side of the ship and getting echoes back. Only by knowing the correct velocity for the water we are travelling in, can we get an accurate image of the sea floor. It is great to be able to have this displayed in 3D in real time.

Leigh and Jessica record the variation in this deep sea core. The black sections are caused by the precipitation of iron sulphide by bacteria in reducing conditions. This is the target layer we are aiming for. The olive green is ash from a volcanic eruption some 500,000 years ago. It has now decomposed to sticky clay. The brownish-white core section closest to the camera overlies this and is a typical deep-sea ooze consisting of the calcium carbonate remains of plankton living in the sea above.


The ship is actually a busy industrial site, hence casque obligatoire on deck along with boots. Things break, cores get bent and have to be fixed and there is no Bunnings Hardware nearby. There are round-the-clock repairs being made and equipment being adapted or even invented. Welding, metalwork, carpentry and electrical repairs are all done onboard in well equipped workshops. Electrical technicians and computer programmers are on-call at all hours and are essential to support the scientific program.

Heidi controlling the saw as it splits a core, assisted by Terney.

The equipment on the rear deck was cleared and stowed below, and the rock dredge prepared for our first dredge station at a site still to be selected from the new data coming in. The students see the dredge as a welcome change from lugging cores and getting covered in white deep sea ooze. Also, there is a good prospect of getting

unusual rocks from the deep, maybe along with creatures. Best estimate is that it will go in the water on our watch tonight and be on deck at breakfast time.

Joo Han (University of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea) checks that the XBT and CTD data have been used to obtain a true velocity curve for the speed of sound as it goes to the sea floor and back.


Day 12

February 18, 2006 A weekend is just the same as every other day at sea. Still surveying early this morning, but by breakfast Jim and Neville had located and defined three good dredge targets: two scarps and a seamount. It turned out to be a black day – we were covered in black manganese oxide by the end of it, quite a contrast to the vivid white ooze we were covered in yesterday. More of that later. As is always the case when exploring a new frontier, the scarps we are mapping are more complicated when revealed by the multibeam. They appear as a series of en echelon tears in the sea floor on the 3D image. We want to know the age and type of rocks underlying the Lord Howe Rise, and this can only be done by dredging them along faults where earth movements have exposed them on the sea floor. A previously unknown 400 meter high seamount was also discovered. This volcano formed here because of the pre-existing weakness in the earth’s crust. We want to find out when this lava leaked up to the surface. Don’t forget that Australia claims this sea floor and we know so little about it. Excitement levels rose, when amongst the pile of black manganese in the first dredge was found a rock with rounded pebbles, indicating a river once flowed here back, when this plateau was part of Australia and the dinosaurs roamed and the Tasman Sea was still to form. In one rock we identified a fossil shell inoceramus, which thrived in the late Cretaceous seas. Volcanic rocks were also found and will be chemically analysed to compare with those on the east coast of Australia and determine their source.

Black manganese oxide covers all rocks that have been exposed on the deep sea floor for a long time, and similar manganese forms as nodules on very slowly accumulating brown muds. Despite a lot of work there are still many unknowns about their origin. Sea water contains very little manganese, so where does it come from? Many scientists believe it comes from waters squeezed out of manganese rich rocks deep below the sea floor. The surface of the crusts is covered with bacteria and encrusting organisms, which also play a vital role in their formation. Radiometric dating says they grow at a rate of only millimetres per million years. The manganese crusts also contain iron, copper, nickel and cobalt in sufficient quantities that they have been of interest to mining companies.

Our biology team of Mirella, Emily and Melanie examine the fascinating world of organisms that live on these black crusts from the deep.

On a visit to the Bridge today with students, the officer confirmed our impressions that we were alone out here on the high seas. We have not seen a ship since leaving port!


Tina, who is a meteorology/oceanography student, was particularly interested in their weather monitoring. Amongst other things, we are also a floating weather station, ground-truthing satellite remote sensing and relaying our data back to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. We are the only real data point in this huge area of ocean. The officer on watch said she was glad to be in the southern hemisphere, as a break from the peak hour traffic in the Mediterranean or Bay of Biscaye. It has been nice having a full moon while at sea, because it lights the night and reflects on the sea surface. But many stars are still visible because of the clear air. I am just glad we don’t have to navigate by them these days. Marion Dufresne navigated through these waters in 1771 before he landed on the north island of New Zealand and was killed in the ensuing battle.

The sea floor we surveyed over the past few hours looks like a painting on a blank canvas. It is all new information for this area of the sea floor and ridges, valleys and volcanoes can be identified. The white canvas will have to be painted in by future research cruises.

Heidi, who is working on sharks for her thesis, was pleased to extract a fossil shark’s tooth from the debris (see palm of her hand). It will be identified and its age determined.


Day 13

February 20, 2006

Felicia launching the XBT over the stern of the ship with Martin and students looking on. A thin copper wire spools out as the ship sails on.

The third dredge was completed early this morning, retrieving rocks and animals from a 300 meter high scarp on the flank of the volcano discovered yesterday. It took about three to four hours for each of our dredges in 1,800 meters of water. We got bites that required a 10 tonne pull on the winch to free the dredge and hopefully break off the rocks. Launching and retrieving the dredge is a big operation, with steel cables connecting a 2.5 tonne weight 100 meters in front of the heavy steel chain-bag dredge. All this is then connected to the main high strength Kelvar cable. More students made breakfast than usual, as dimanche means the smell of freshly baked pain aux raisins and pain au chocolat to have with our café au lait. Along with the variety of rocks to be analysed and dated in the lab onshore were a huge variety of animals. This dark, cold, deep sea habitat is favourable for animals

who have adapted to cling to exposed rocks, with currents bringing them nutrients. We only know about the rocks and currents because of our seismic survey, which shows that currents have scoured a moat around the volcano. Unfortunately we didn’t have a specialist deep-sea biologist onboard, in fact they are also a rare species on land. We sorted and identified what we could and archived hard corals (bamboo, precious red and black), pink soft corals, brittle star fish, brachiopods, bivalves, sponges made of opal, soft sponges, gastropods, crinoids, sea urchins and worms. They will be sent to biologists at the Australian Museum and CSIRO. We gathered as a group in the Ops Lab to review progress, discoveries, results of analyses and operational plans for the next couple of days. We are now continuing south along the eastern side of the Lord Howe Rise (plateau) to map the submarine erosion taking place and exposing the tectonic structure of the deeper rocks. The Fairway Basin is to our east and we will go round its southern margin and then north along what we believe to be a volcanic ridge on its eastern side. Yet again, basic bathymetric data is lacking and we have time for only one 12km wide swath. We also only have time for two more dredges before it is back to coring. There is never enough time. The students have now organized a badminton tournament, including the crew, to be held in the huge cavernous empty holds forward of the Bridge. They have their priorities right. The double hold where the court is improvised is more like a giant metal sauna with deafening noise from the


tunnel thruster at the bow and the sonar transducer chirping every few seconds. Noise is a given on a research ship, with welding repairs, angle grinders cutting the bent pipes for recycling and then inside there is the constant hum of the engines and air-conditioning. Still no wildlife except for a few flying fish. Just seeing them zip from wave to wave through the air is another first for many of the students.

Part of the biological haul from the dredge of the side of the volcano. Opal sponges, precious coral, soft coral etc. A wide variety of biological specimens were recovered in the dredge and will be sent to experts to examine. Amazing to see what lives at these depths and some will be new species never seen before.


Day 14

February 20, 2006

Julie, Felicia and I examine the dredge.

In goes the dredge.

In the Operations Laboratory we monitor all data collected by the ship. Nine video cameras are mounted in key areas and we

can switch from views of the waves ahead, to checking the wire laying on the winch spools, or checking the angle of the wire we have our instruments dangling on over the stern, to make sure it has not gone under the ship. Until a couple of days ago there were only 21 screens and paper recorders displaying real-time data for us to monitor. Now there are 22! Cameron (Geoscience Australia), has squeezed a laptop between two monitors with his 3D visualization of the sea floor, with our exact location and track overlaid. It is a very useful addition. We continued our survey, mapping the margins of the Fairway Basin using all our remote sensing techniques: multibeam bathymetry, seismic, magnetics and gravity. What we have found is that existing maps lack real data, or are wrong. A ridge shown on the charts as 30 km long and 300 meters high does not exist. This is not surprising to us as marine scientists, because the data in this area is before GPS. Our data will be sent to the GEBCO data base (General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans) so the charts can be corrected based on our one swath track around this basin. This sea floor is claimed by Australia as part of its extended continental shelf under the UN Law of the Sea. In fact, Australia claims over 12 million square kilometers of the sea floor, nearly double the size of its land area, so there is a lot of work to be done, with very limited resources available to universities and Geoscience Australia. While the dredge was coming in we had a lecture from Graham Logan (Geoscience Australia), on methods used to locate natural seeps of oil and gas from the sea floor. He showed how Synthetic Aperture


Radar (SAR) from satellites is commonly used to identify slicks on the sea surface, but these slicks need much more investigation before they can be related to seeps on the sea floor below. He led a team to ‘ground truth’ these slicks off northwest Australia. They did exactly what we are doing here, only in shallow water 50-100 meters deep. They found that bathymetry caused some slicks, tidal currents caused other and coral spawning also caused some. Only by doing multibeam mapping, seismic and bottom sampling, could they confirm the real gas seeps. Graham also explained how his samples from the cores would tell if methane was seeping up from below and if it was methane from bacteria or hydrocarbons. Our cores have penetrated below the brownish oxidized mud into the grey anoxic mud. Here the bacteria use sulphate in the groundwater as energy and burn organic carbon or methane if it is present. Because there is little organic carbon in these sediments, if he finds sulphate is being used up as he analyses down the core, then the bacteria must be using methane from below. He will measure total carbon dioxide levels to confirm if bugs are turning methane into carbon dioxide. If I haven’t already lost you, he will also analyse biomarkers which will tell him the type of bacteria present. Not to mention major element analysis and stable isotopes of carbon. Fascinating stuff. The students now have two more research papers on their take-home CD to digest. All the methods we are training the students to use on this cruise have their scaled-down equivalents for practical use in ports and harbours and coastal waters.

A bag full of ooze that has to be hosed overboard. Disappointment all round. But there is always another day.

Awnesh, Exsley and Matthew grab a midnight snack of baguette and fromage in the galley.


Day 15

February 21, 2006 A spectacular sunrise from steel beach with the cirrus clouds and 20 knot wind from 0750. A lone seabird follows us in the hope of some scraps. There were reports of sharks at our last dredge station, but I was asleep. For those still interested, the gravity of the earth here is 8434.52 mGal. May be useful for a trivia night. We are also towing a proton precession magnetometer 280 meters behind the ship. This measures the value of the earth’s magnetic field. The unit of measurement is the gamma or nanotesla. In the 1960’s it was the work-horse instrument towed by research vessels to record the reversals of the earth’s magnetism in rocks on the sea floor. Combining data from many research cruises showed the reversals to be symmetrical either side of the mid-Atlantic ridge, thus paving the way for the plate tectonic revolution in earth sciences. It is also useful for locating sunken ships and buried pipelines. The magnetic ‘signature’ of the sea floor or objects appears on magnetometer readings as ‘anomalies’ or noticeable deviations from the background intensity for the earth’s magnetic field in this area. When we pulled it onboard yesterday, there were scratches from teeth marks where sharks had had a go at it. During the night we continued north mapping the eastern margin of the Fairway Basin. We were mapping a ridge in 3,500 meters of water when we discovered a ‘cliff’ that rises 600 meters in a distance of one kilometre! Discussions are held with the captain to determine direction for dredging, taking into account wind and

waves. This heavy duty operation has to be safe for crew and ship. With our target and track defined, the dredge went in early this morning. The dredge got hung up, causing some anxious moments as the ship was winched backwards nearly a kilometre before being freed. But it was worth it, as it broke off granite, conglomerate and sandstone. These are the first basement rocks ever dredged from the eastern margin of the basin. Prior to this cruise there were three theories as to the origin of this ridge –volcanic, uplifted deep crust or continental crust. Today we have confirmed it is continental crust. We can now predict continental crust to underlie the whole Fairway Basin.

Nicely rounded pebbles make up this conglomerate retrieved in the dredge from 3,000 meters. The smaller piece of rock is granite also broken off this submarine ridge by the dredge.

Time for a bit of oceanography as operations are quiet, as we continue surveying to complete our loop around the margins of the Fairway Basin and on track


to our next core station tonight on the crest of the Lord Howe Rise, west of our earlier core stations. The ocean is made up of layers (water masses) with different properties. They migrate horizontally and sometimes vertically to mix the ocean. Each layer must be lighter than the one below, else it would overturn. The temperature and salinity values we measured with the CTD are used to determine this density. Temperature has the biggest affect. Our CTD graph shows salinity higher at the surface because of higher evaporation at this tropical location. Pressure is used to measure the water depth. Another use for the CTD data is calculating sound velocity. At one of our CTD locations it is 1,532 meters per second at the surface, decreases to a minimum of 1,488 meters per second at 1,100 m water depth, then increases to 1,508 meters per second at 3,000 m, the deepest data point. The low velocity layer between 1,000 and 1,300 meters is the SOFAR (Sound Fixing And Ranging) channel. Sound becomes trapped in this layer and can be transmitted across entire oceans. Marine mammals make use of it for long distance communication and the military use it for submarine surveillance. The XBT we dropped further south shows a different temperature profile with depth, hence different velocities had to be entered into the multi-beam mapper. The ping-pong doubles tournament reached its climax today, with the grand final between Heidi-Awnesh versus Jim-Neville. It drew a noisy crowd after lunch, with the outcome in doubt till youth defeated experience.

The Grand Final of the ping-pong brought out a crowd. Awnesh and Heidi versus Jim and Neville. This is the gym on H deck behind the bridge. Exsley is umpiring.

The victors and vanquished at the presentation ceremony.


Day 16

February 22, 2006 Excellent results with the coring overnight. Over twenty-two meters with a 28m barrel, followed soon after by over 34 meters using a 42m barrel, then a 15m heat-flow core. The first had been processed by the time we came on watch to see the big one come onboard. Small dogfish sharks (Family Squalidae) could be seen circling the ship in the floodlights. These cores kept the students busy all day as we continued mapping west to the next core station, which we should reach at midnight. A unique opportunity came the way of the team working on the Calypso corer. Chief of Operations Yvon Balut insisted that they ‘shadow’ him for one complete coring operation. What an opportunity for these young scientist to gain from Yvon’s 30 years of experience. His tireless enthusiasm and innovation for marine geoscience earned him a prestigious medal from the American Geophysical Union last year. As the cruise draws to an end it is time for evaluation. Comments from the crew and other scientists have nothing but praise for all the students. They have worked hard and played hard. I have seen cultural and national barriers broken down with friendships and teamwork. These students will retain the links they have made for the rest of their lives, to the benefit of marine science in the Indo-Pacific region. This is the second expedition for The University of the Sea and we have now trained 40 students from 14 countries – all at no cost to the students. This could not have been done without the generous support of the French Polar Institute who allowed us to ‘piggy-back’ on research

cruises. Patrick from ANU, Greg from UTS, along with Julie and myself from the University of Sydney all volunteer for this endeavour as it is so rewarding. Dr Elaine Baker throws up new ideas and runs the ‘Secretariat’ at the University of Sydney. We are grateful to our major sponsor the Toyota Foundation of Japan for providing financial support for the first two cruises. Other financial contributors are the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (UNESCO); and to fund the Australian students, the ARC Network for Earth System Science and the Office for Promoting Marine Geoscience in Australia. The ‘Secretariat’ consists of Jenny Reeks part-time, and without her good humour, diplomacy and organising skills, the students would never get to the ship let alone get visas, insurance, medical checks, etc. We hope to do it again next year – once my knee recovers from badminton.


Day 17

February 23, 2006 We are now coring on the western flank of the Lord Howe Rise. Using the long 42 meter barrel early this morning we cored 36.3 meters, a record for this expedition. That was in 2,594 meters of water. This was followed by a 33.9 meter core in similar water depths. This can only be done because the ship has dynamic positioning to hold it over the core site despite today’s 20 knot wind and swell. The heat flow core was also successful. The lesson today is on deep-sea ooze. What is this ooze that now covers students and ship as if they have been white-washed? It is composed of the microscopic remains of plankton. All the soft parts of the plankton have been dissolved (oxidation of the organic carbon) as they settled to the sea floor. Only the ‘shells’ remain and they consist of calcium carbonate like beach shells, so it is white. Algae and single-celled protozoans are the plankton that provide the bulk of the white ooze. The most common fossils are coccoliths (algae) and foraminifers (protozoans). A minor part of the ooze at this location is made up of the opal remains from plankton called radiolarians (protozoans). Although the ooze looks white there are clearly defined cycles down the core. These record the ice ages when the productivity of the oceans was greater than today. The individual reports are in and the six teams are putting the final touches to their posters. They look very professional and will be printed tomorrow and displayed in the Forum, for tomorrow night is national costume night. Australians struggle on these occasions. My solution was to involve my watch which eats dinner alone at a second sitting at 8pm. We have been working our

way through the wine cellar so I can get enough bouchons to hang from my hat for tomorrow night. Operations went very smoothly today so we have finished the coring ahead of schedule. It was decided to map the base of seamounts to the north-west of us to define their extent. They are nearly 4,000 meters high and come to within 400 meters of the surface. They were once volcanoes above the sea and have subsided to their present depth. Coral reefs grew on then till they got too deep. We know this from dredge samples and a survey of their tops by CSIRO. We are certain to reveal more diverse seafloor environments down their flanks.

Tina (oceanographer) “I can feel the forams, definitely a white foraminiferal nannofossil ooze.”


Day 18

February 24, 2006

Exsley and Heidi (shark expert) examine the teeth marks on the magnetometer made by a shark attack.

During the night we surveyed a line north of Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs across the Middleton Basin and over the Dampier Ridge. We went round the base of Stradbroke and Britannia seamounts this morning with all our remote sensors operating. The water at the base of these volcanoes is 4,800 meters deep and our swath extends 7.5km on either side of the ship in these depths. and revealed small volcanic cones and erosion scars on the sea floor. The ship is doing 15kts, funny how it always go faster on the way home. Today was spent finishing the core analyses, correcting posters and printing them. They look great and contain a wealth of detail and analysis of what we accomplished. They are now hanging in the bar for all the crew to review. There is a trivia quiz tomorrow night organized by Julie. I don’t know what questions she has in mind but I do know that the ship makes 20 tonnes of water a day

from seawater and it tastes fine. but the apparently endless supply of bottled water is more popular with the students. There are 48 crew onboard, including 18 from Madagascar known as Malgache. The student have worked with them, eaten with them and partied with them as well. Evidently there are plans to all go out together in Sydney after the reception. Geoscience Australia provided the pre-dinner drinks as a thank you to all the crew and students. We are all wearing national costumes. I think I will spare you the photos. I sense that the students are starting to get channel fever and so am I after an exhilarating but exhausting three weeks. A few lectures and poster presentations tomorrow will keep them occupied.

Mirella, Felicia and Denise watch with mounting tension to see if their poster creation turns out as imagined.


Day 19

February 25, 2006 Today we continued our survey down the New South Wales coast. Watches are still monitoring all our instruments – seismic, magnetics, gravity and multi-beam. Again it is the multi-beam that is revealing the sea floor in 3D for the first time. even though we are only 60km from shore. We are in 4,500 meters of water and the multi-beam is sending pulses 8km on both sides of the ship to map the base of the continental rise and the adjacent abyssal plain. This 16 km wide swath has revealed a huge canyon off Coffs Harbour with sides 1,400 meters high. This canyon was cut by submarine flows of sediment - avalanches and mud and sand laden currents. They would have rushed down the canyon from the delta of the nearby Bellingen River when it was much bigger than it is today. This morning we met in the theatre to hear Terney give a very moving account of the tsunami as it struck Sri Lanka. He was less than two kilometers from the coast, on his way to go diving for his coral research, when the tsunami struck. He had to flee the advancing wave. Terney lost several members of his family and was the first on the scene to help. On a positive note, he explained the programs he is involved in and now underway to rehabilitate the coastline, coral reefs and economy, and management plans to lessen the impacts if it ever happens again. Neville then gave a presentation on the international Ocean Drilling Program, its results in the Indo-Pacific region and the new drilling program to replace it. He has high hopes that the Australian Government will fund an application for membership that Australian scientists have submitted.

Lets hope he is right, as we need to be sitting at the table of these major international science programs. Jim then gave a run down on the vast amount of marine geoscience data that had to be collected for our Law of the Sea submission. We are using the same techniques on this ship, but with different objectives. The students presented their posters in the afternoon. After deliberation the judges (Yvon, Jim, Jean-Paul and Neville) gave the decision to ‘Ocean Properties Measured Using CTD and XBT Probes’ by Felicia, Melanie and Denise.

Crew members examining the student’s work.

Finally, before dinner, we thanked the crew and French Polar Institute for welcoming us aboard RV Marion Dufresne and we presented Yvon with a gift to thank him for all his effort in making this adventure come true. Prizes were given to the poster winners and thanks to the organizers of the ping-


pong (Exsley and Lilian) and the badminton (Ziyad and Denise). The day ended with packing up and a fun night of trivia, while the ship, as usual, continuing to collect unique seafloor data right up to the Heads of Sydney Harbour.

Utami, Ziyad and Lilian enjoying the national costume night.


The University of the Sea ready for watch. Compare with the group photo on day 1!


Day 20

February 26, 2006

Where we went. The ship track.

Research cruise MD153 comes to an end as we steam into Sydney Harbour, with the early morning sun highlighting the cliffs facing the sea. Did we solve the mystery of the BSR and gas hydrates? This is not the place for me to steal the thunder from the scientist whose project it was, but I can say they were very pleased with the results and will announce

more at a press conference today. As is always the case, there are many months of painstaking analyses to be made on the samples back in the laboratory before results are determined, and conclusions drawn and published in the scientific literature for all to debate. We, the students and staff of the University of the Sea, certainly made many discoveries – about marine research, about teamwork, about different nations and about ourselves. The students will scrub-up for the Reception tonight onboard the ship hosted by the French Embassy, where they will receive a certificate acknowledging their participation in the cruise from the French Ambassador to Australia. The ship has now finished its oceanographic research for the season and will return to its home base Ile de la Réunion in the western Indian Ocean. Adieu et bon voyage! This diary was written by Jock Keene, University of the Sea Cruise Leader 2006. [email protected] School of Geosciences The University of Sydney


Outcomes and Networking During the last week of the cruise, each student wrote a report on their involvement in the cruise research. These were read by the instructors and feedback given. The students also prepared six posters on selected topics (see below). They were displayed in the ship’s lounge and the students gave oral presentations on each poster. The posters were judged by a panel consisting of the Chief Scientists Drs Colwell and Foucher, along with Dr Exon and Dr Wirrman. A prize was awarded for the best poster, at a ceremony in front of the crew and scientific party. A poster was also prepared, based on the research carried out on the 12 cores by the students. The climate cycles identified were based on the data from the Multi-Sensor Track, along with sediment composition. All seven posters were submitted, and accepted, for presentation at the Australian Earth Sciences Convention 2-6 July, 2006, Melbourne http://www.earth2006.org.au/ The research poster was accepted for the conference session on ‘Ocean and Climate Change in the Sedimentary record’ and the student posters were accepted for the session on ‘The future starts with resourcing geoscience education’. 1. Title: "Sedimentation history in the Fairway and northern New Caledonia Basins, Tasman Sea"

Authors: J. Keene, G. Skilbeck, J. Dickinson, L. Anderson, J. Bowen-Thomas, D. Chand, T. Donaldson, M. Dryburgh, U. Kadarwati, B. Kinna, Z. Kurnia, J. H. Lee, M. Lewis, B. Mamo, H. Pethybridge, P. Terney, A. Singh, E. Taloiburi, E. Twiggs, M. Verhoeven, L. Weiland, F. Weir and Shipboard Party.

Abstract:

Twelve giant CALYPSO and gravity cores were collected from the Fairway and New Caledonia Basins during a recent cruise (MD153) of the IPEV research vessel Marion Dufresne. Cores comprise carbonate marine sediments, predominantly foraminifera-bearing nannofossil oozes, with typical beige and brown Milankovitch banding. Rare clay beds are interpreted to be volcanic in origin. If we assume an average sedimentation rate of 2 cm per ka, the recovered material represents most of the Pleistocene. The geographic range of the cores extends from the ~southern margin of the Indo-pacific Warm Pool to the Tasman front, suggesting presence of a long record of climate and ocean current variability for the western subtropical Pacific Ocean.

2. Title: "The University of the Sea: Practical Marine Sciences Education" Authors: P. DeDekker, E. Baker, J. Keene, G. Skilbeck, J. Dickinson, L. Anderson, J. Bowen-

Thomas, D. Chand, T. Donaldson, M. Dryburgh, U. Kadarwati, B. Kinna, Z. Kurnia, J. H. Lee, M. Lewis, B. Mamo, H. Pethybridge, P. Terney, A. Singh, E. Taloiburi, E. Twiggs, M. Verhoeven, L. Weiland, F. Weir and Shipboard Party.

Abstract:

The second Asia-Pacific University of the Sea research training cruise has recently been completed, in conjunction with the ZONOCO12 and AUSFAIR research programs. The University of the Sea is a practical solution to the paucity of funding for support of expensive training of Australian and Asian marine scientists. With the strong and critical support of the French Institute for Polar Research (IPEV) and M. Yvon Balut, it is now possible to provide seaboard experience for up to 20 students during each cruise. While at sea, the students are involved in active research programs, as


well as undertaking learning activities such as lectures and the preparation of posters detailing the various aspects of data collection and interpretation. The six posters presented here were prepared by participating students.

The official Cruise Report put out by IPEV and Geoscience Australia will also acknowledge the contributions made by the students of the University of the Sea. The students have maintained contact post-cruise via an email list and a web-based network has been established, in order to maintain communication between student participants in 2005 and 2006 cruises. The six poster topics and authors were: Calypso Corer and Rock Dredge: Interpretation of Sediment and Rock Types in the Fairway Basin. Jessica Bowen-Thomas, Leigh Anderson and Awnesh Singh. Ocean Properties Measured Using CTD and EBT Probes. Felicia Weir, Melanie Lewis and Denise Chan. Determining Geophysical Properties using MST. Lilian Weiland, Utami Kadarwati, Matthew Dryburgh and Joo Han Lee. Biology of dredge samples, plankton tows and fossil remains in cores. Briony Mamo, Terney Pransiscu and Heidi Pethybridge. Seabed Processes and Habitat Interpretation Using the 3.75 kHz Sub-bottom Profiler. Emily Twiggs, Mirella Verhoeven and Agus Ziyad Kurnia. Multibeam Operations and Swath Mapping. Tina Donaldson, Exsley Taloiburi, and Belinda Kinna.


Student Assessments


Budget

Income:

Source Details Cash AUD$

IOC UNESCO Grant: “Building Capacity

of Member States in

Marine Science Research”

15,904.59

Toyota Foundation Grant: “Ocean Discovery

Network: Training

Through Research in

Asia”

4,238.43

Marine Geoscience Office

(MARGO)

Contribution to UOS 2006 10,000

Australian Research Council Contribution: Earth Systems

Science Network

(ARC ESSN)

10,000

TOTAL 40,143.02

Expenditure:

Type Details AUD$

Airfares International Students

Australian Students

Staff

18,029.94

4799.68

1042.51

Accommodation/Board Marion Dufresne

In transit

11,020.20

836.17

Travel Insurance International Students 216.91

Study/Research Materials

and Communication costs

408.26

UOS T-shirts and caps 1061.20

Preparation of the Asia-

Pacific TTR brochure and

website contents.

2,717.19

TOTAL 40,143.02


In Kind Contributions:

Source Details Amount AUD$ Institut Polaire Francais Paul Emile Victor (IPEV)

Use of World Class Research Facility, RV Marion Dufresne.

Beyond a monetary value

University of Sydney Secretariat Costs, Salary and associated costs for Baker, Dickinson and Keene.

28,000

University of Technology, Sydney

Salary and associated costs for Skilbeck.

7,000

Australian National University

Travel, Salary and associated costs for De Deckker.

12,000


Acknowledgements

A big thank you to all who have worked hard to make this second training expedition of the ‘University of the Sea’ possible, especially all the crew on the ship and particularly: Mr Gerard Jugie, Director of the French Polar Institute, for encouragement and providing access to the research vessel; Mr Yvon Balut, Operations Manager onboard the Marion Dufresne, who went out of his way to help the students onboard and make sure they were trained and integrated with the shipboard experience; and Dr Helene Leau, who was gaining experience as Operations Manager, but also took on the extra duties of managing the students. A thank you to all the research scientists for allowing the students to ‘piggy-back’ on their research program: Any initial apprehension they may have had about the students ‘getting in the way’ evaporated and turned into enthusiastic support and encouragement. Particular thanks to the Chief Scientists, Dr Jim Coldwell from Geoscience Australia and Dr Jean-Paul Foucher from Ifremer. Thank you to the shore team: Ms Jenny Reeks and Dr Elaine Baker at the University of Sydney who worked tirelessly to overcome bureaucratic hurdles in getting visas, plane tickets and accommodation, and to ensure students from seven countries were able to join a French ship in the south Pacific for the experience of a life-time, and return home safely. Thanks to my colleagues onboard: Professor Patrick De Deckker (ANU) was our French-speaking and email writing go-between in organizing the program. Fortunately for us he was also able to participate in the first leg of the cruise and provide the students with his internationally recognized research in paleoceanography, climate change and biology of the oceans. Thanks to Professor Greg Skillbeck who provided leaderships skills and his extensive Ocean Drilling Program experience to the students for geophysical training, particularly on the MST. Finally, but not least, thanks to Dr Julie Dickinson who worked the midnight to dawn hours training the students and ensured they gained both scientifically and culturally from the cruise. Thank you to the following institutions for financial support that enabled students to participate at no cost: The Toyota Foundation of Japan, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO), the ARC Network for Earth Systems Sciences, MARGO (Office for Promoting Marine Geoscience in Australia), the Australian National University and the University of Sydney. Finally, thanks to all the ‘University of the Sea’ students. They impressed all with their enthusiasm for the science, and embraced the cultural and ethnic diversity on the ship. This program has done its little bit to foster international understanding and cooperation in the region as well as building scientific capacity. Hopefully it can continue, funding permitting. Jock Keene (University of Sydney) Cruise Leader, University of the Sea 2006


University of the Sea Contact Information

Street Address: Room 137 Demountable Building H11 Corner of Rose and Codrington Streets Chippendale Postal Address: University of the Sea School of Geosciences, H11 University of Sydney Sydney NSW 2006 Australia Contact Details: Telephone: 61 2 9351 3000 Fax: 61 2 9036 6588 Email: [email protected] or [email protected] Website: www.usims.org.usyd.edu.au/floating.html

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